Peace
by CGWilliam
Summary: Inspired by the Broken Pyrrha artwork by Dishwasher1910. Arc and Nikos have reached the end, they have burned the world killed friends. They saved the world, but they are not heroes.


Looking around the ruins Nikos drew in a shaky breath. Tasting the ash in the air she closed her dark eyes and slowly opened her eyes to look at what had once been her throne. The cracked and scared marble was a shadow of what it had once been, all its beauty stripped away.

The throne had lost all the power it had once had, now only a piece of rock. Looking at her own hands, Nikos slowly flexed the hard carapace claws. She could hardly feel anything through them, and they were always stained by the blood from Humans and Faunus she had killed. It wasn't something she could wash away.

Nikos kept her eyes on the fracture throne as the faint mechanical whirring signaled the approach of her companion. The man who had been with her through it all, and had pledged to follow her back to this very spot.

Nikos heard the faint whir of his shield sliding onto ground, ever ready to fight the shield was a part of him, his weapons part of him. Long ago there had been a distinction, a separation between them. Now though, he was a weapon inside and out. She had used him as one, and he had fallen into the role as easily as the Grimm she could control.

Nikos put her hand on the throne, the black soot staining the white marble thick and unmoving. "Arc. Was it worth it?"

The Knight shifted "No." His voice had once contained the last vestiges of his vocal cords, but was now purely synthesized. Only slight inflections identified him as anything more than a machine. "We did what we had to."

Nikos shook her head, "We can tell ourselves that. It does not change what we did, what I made you do."

"Nikos, as much as I've gone through my mind has always been my own. You never forced me to do anything. I am not the one fighting against fear incarnate with every step."

Nikos shuddered at his words, the mention of it brining the constant and trying battle to the forefront of her mind. She was a twisted creature, the disfigurements on her skin only the smallest changes. The darkness that was in her mind, in her limbs. It was an enjoyment for death, violence, and pain. A lust for everything she had once fought with every breath.

It was something she had to restrain, at every moment of every day. Sleep couldn't even free her from it, her dreams twisted visions where she reveled in it all. The pain, the misery. When she killed, the darkness rejoiced and in the midst of battle she reveled in it.

Only the man behind her could drag her back, and ensure she suffered for the atrocities she committed to save the world.

Nikos sighed and took her hand away from the throne. "Will you keep your promise?"

The machine shifted and Nikos heard the slight hiss of his helmet sliding away. She kept her eyes averted, not willing to look into the mechanical eyes. "I don't want to."

"Will you keep it? You're the only one who can, and the only one who should."

Arc shifted and turned to look at the stained marble, remembering the times long ago when he stood behind it. The times, when everything had started to change. He had though that the battle which had forced him into the armor was the hardest thing he would ever have to endure.

It had been simple, his life for the woman he loved. A hero would do that every time, always ready to give their lives for a cause. It was noble, but foolish. It was the reason heroes always died young.

Arc hadn't died then, but in the past two decades he was sure that death had claimed him. He was nothing more than a machine now, one with purpose and one that only thought it was an Arc. He and Nikos did not deserve whatever small fragments of their souls they still had.

Arc settled his artificial eyes on the cracked marble, "Sit."

Nikos almost turned to look at him, her head twitching and the spines that covered her form twitching in surprise.

"Not after what I've done. What I've made you do."

"You did not force me to do anything Nikos." Growled Arc.

The woman let out a low hiss, "You are in that armor because of me. You are a killer because of me. The blood of so many friends is on your hands because of me." She flexed her claws at the words. Not mentioning the things, she had done.

Arc pulled his shield up from the ground. "We did what we had to Nikos. We didn't save the world. We've made sure that it won't ever need saving again. At least from everything that Ozpin and Salem started."

Arc stepped forwards now, and slowly raising a mechanical hand placed it on the cancerous growth that was her shoulder. "We've done it. You and I, we lost almost everything we had to do this and threw away what little we did manage to keep. I want something back."

She shrugged away from him, keeping her eyes far from his own.

Arc settled again placing his shield down behind her blocking any escape. "The night Salem took you was the worst of my life. I felt like the class clown again, here I was the most advanced solider on Remnant, with the power of an entire warship in my hands and I had failed again."

Arc shifted the metal of his body, every servo and hydraulic whirring. It was his body now, he'd been mechanical more of his life than anything else. The times where he had been a gangly teenager, a distant memory.

"That year, I learned what pain was. The ache in my limbs, as I fought through rejection sickness. That was nothing compared to your absence."

Nikos shuddered, that year had been when she had changed as well. When she had failed, and become the monstrosity.

Arc continued, "Seeing you on that table, as she twisted the power of every maiden into her own, and twisted you into what you are now... I can't sleep, but if I could your screams would be the sounds of my nightmares."

Arc sighed, the noise purely aesthetic. He did not have lungs to breath with anymore, only dull sensors telling him the exact chemical composition of the air.

"Killing Salem. It was the first time, the first time I enjoyed killing someone."

Steeling herself, Nikos glanced at the man out of the side of her eyes. Meeting his cold blue gaze for only a moment. "Most people would enjoy killing her. I would."

Arc nodded, "It was the first time, I'd killed before. I couldn't vomit without a stomach, but I felt like I would. After killing her?" he trailed off.

Nikos could not cry; the eyes of the Grimm did not hold tears. Her heart was no longer able to feel much beyond hate, perverse pleasure, and revenge. The small part of her original conscious felt a pang of sadness at the Knights confession. The boy she had first met so long ago, to even imagine he might have enjoyed killing one day was nearly impossible.

To think that she would stand beside him ordering the murders, was even less conceivable.

"I remember that fight. In the Grimm's domain."

It was Arc's turn to be stunned, "You said you didn't."

Nikos slowly shook her head, "I wanted to kill you. Remembering the fight, is painful. I wholeheartedly wanted to rip the few shreds of the heart you had from your chest and watch as your soul faded away." She paused, "Even now some small part of me enjoys the idea."

"I can believe it." grunted Arc.

For nearly three days the two of them had fought, killing Grimm and anything else that came near them in blind battle lust that had consumed them both. Nikos remembered the rage of the battle, her new body and instincts fighting and killing even as she tried to regain control. She had not been locked away in her own mind, but her priorities had been twisted and warped. Like when she received the blessings of the Maiden power, and the peace had washed over her.

Instead her will had been cruelly twisted in the other direction, to enjoy pain and suffering. She had even battled the man she loved, and planned the deaths of her friends, her parents, her teachers. Imagining a thousand ways to kill each of them with slow deliberate pleasure.

Even now she enjoyed the thoughts of their deaths.

It was in the aftermath of the battle that Nikos had extracted the promise from the man she loved.

Nikos turned to look at the man. "Why do you want me to sit?"

Arc moved around the marble throne and settled back into the same position he had held decades ago. Relaxing into it, he closed both of his eyes.

"We've burned kingdoms. Murdered our friends, slaughtered innocents. We don't deserve peace Nikos." His electronic voice cracked slightly, but he continued. "We did it to rid the world of Salem's maidens. We could have done it differently killed fewer."

Nikos shook her head, and stabbed her hand into the nearest boulder, "We tried that. The crater that is this city attests to that attempt."

Salem's maidens had been very much like Cinder. The juvenile enemy they had both faced so long ago was nothing compared to the Maidens that Salem had created on her own. Stealing the power of the original Maidens, and combining it with the souls of those the Grimm had consumed over centuries the Witch had created vile seductresses of power, influence and poise.

Nikos was supposed to be the General, her mind broken to the whim of the Witch. A commander who would control the Maidens of Salem's control. When Arc had killed the Witch, the creatures had been left without a Master and Nikos had been left in a half Maiden, half Grimm, barely Human state.

Arc had been the only one in Salem's domain when that happened, and the one who had dragged her nearly dead corpse back to Atlas. He had hoped that the most advanced Kingdom would be able to purge the Grimm from her.

He had barely convinced them not to kill her, only the threats of violence staying the hands of those in command.

Her friends had at first tried to support her, remain by her side. Only Arc had done so, sitting outside the containment cell the Atlas military had constructed guarding her for years on end. He was the only one who knew what it was like to be twisted into something else. To be remade down to the very core. Forged into something, not Human.

Salem's Maidens had meanwhile gained power, they did good like Nikos had once done and the people had flocked to their new 'goddesses' desperate for stability. Even the members of RWBY had followed them, not seeing past the cheap smiles and veneer of kindness that the new Maidens were building the world towards another war.

A war that would have ended the world.

Only the two most twisted creatures on the planet, and one old General who understood some of what had happened to them saw it. The hate and divisions the new Maidens were cultivating.

"I want you to sit, so I can pretend like this never happened." Whispered Arc, "I want for just a moment too imagine what it could have been. What it should have been. It's selfish, but I just…" his voice trailed off into static.

"Open your eyes Arc."

His glowing blue eyes flickered on, and he stared back at Nikos.

"You will keep your promise?" she asked eyes fixed on him.

"An Arc never goes back on his word."

Nikos slowly moved forwards her gaze locked on the broken marble throne. They had become monsters, they had burned through armies and cities. The two of them, they had done the impossible.

They had united the world, by giving every single person in it something to fight, something to fear beyond the Grimm. Two enemies, of unraveled power and malice. Brutish, and uninterested in the politics of man.

They were death incarnate.

Nikos had killed off each of the false Maidens herself, after slaughtering the armies faithfully defending them. Absorbing their power, and entrusting her own control to the man beside her she continued to the next false prophet. He was the only one she could not defeat, and the only one who could kill her.

Slowly Nikos stepped forwards and settled onto the throne.

Forcing the darkness down, she tried to remember what it had been like. When she had last sat on the throne she had been another person. A better person. Someone who had faith in humanity, who had believed that the heroes were the only ones who could change the world.

It was a comforting fantasy.

Dark tears of blood ran down her features but she remained poised on the seat of empty power. It was the least she could do for the man who loved her, who had burned the entire world for her, and remained with her.

"I love you Pyrrha." Whispered the man, his voice in her mind sounding like the boy he had once been.

She opened her eyes, he was standing in front of her now. His sword drawn back, and aimed at her chest.

"I love you Jaune." She whispered.

His hand trembled, and plunged forwards.

The abomination that had once been the goddess, and had always been the woman he loved shuddered as the sword passed through her heart. Her eyes locked on his cold mechanical ones, the woman clamped down on all the power in her.

She would not have redemption, her aura so twisted and thrumming with power could not be allowed to pass on to another. The power of the Maidens would die with her.

The man watched as the woman disintegrated. Letting go of his sword, and collapsing in front of the empty throne he deactivated the safeties on his own mechanical heart. He had broken every creed and code, but kept the one promise he had made to the women he loved.

That was enough.

He would not pass onto paradise, but remain with her as an eternal guardian of the world. He did not deserve rest or reprieve, the lives he had taken demanding pain and sacrifice.

Arc closed his eyes, he would bear the weight for every life he had unjustly took tenfold. He had killed the heroes defending their maidens. They had died for the very same reason he had in the beginning.

It was only right to bear the pain for it. The world would always need heroes.

Closing his eyes even as the mortal coil of the woman he loved began to fade from the world Arc destabilized the core of the technology keeping him alive and passed from the world to take up his eternal vigil beside the woman he loved.


End file.
